Stoke City 0 Aston Villa 0:WHILE THE result may always be pre-eminent, there are matches when the performance, or at least the manner of it, is almost as important.
For the sake of the manager the two home defeats Aston Villa had suffered before this game demanded a committed response from Alex McLeish’s team, and to some extent they got it.
McLeish’s selection provided grounds for comment, most obviously because he decided not to risk Darren Bent, the England striker he insists no other club could afford to buy during the January transfer window.
Bent’s absence suggests it might be worth making an offer, although the official word was that despite being back in training the player is still suffering from a thigh injury.
His team-mates made a positive start. An early Robert Huth header over the bar aside, it was the visitors who looked the more creative of the two sides, breaking from defence with pace. Emile Heskey in particular worked extraordinarily hard in both defence and attack, and was unlucky when he shrugged off Dean Whitehead to meet Charles N’Zogbia’s corner with a glancing header which came back off the outside of the near post.
Stoke’s threat was being restricted almost exclusively to set-pieces, but that is never negligible, as Huth again demonstrated with another powerful header over the bar from Whitehead’s free-kick.
It was typical of McLeish’s luck at the moment that Heskey should have to be replaced during half-time. Forced though it was, the switch almost paid immediate dividends when Nathan Delfouneso’s pace enabled him to get a toe to Gabby Agbonlahor’s low cross. Thomas Sorensen’s save was better than it may have looked.
Stoke went closest to scoring, though, and it must have dismayed McLeish that, as against Liverpool and Arsenal, it was a set-piece that nearly resulted in his team falling behind. From Matthew Etherington corner from the left, Carlos Cuellar’s header hit the underside of the bar and was going in before it came back off the chest of Agbonlahor.
This result means his team have not scored in five of their past seven games. But to buy, McLeish will have to sell. He may not want Bent to leave: circumstances may dictate otherwise.
Guardian Service
